He's a grizzled, balding badass trying to
make things right with his estranged lady while battling
terrorist. I know it sounds a little bit like a Jason
Statham movie or some kind of setup for 'Die Hard' but this
time the action takes place on a plane. I know you're
thinking that 'Die Hard 2' took place on a plane, but you know
full well it took place at the terminal, not on a plane.
'Hijacked' is different. So very different, and not in a
good way.
In this reality there is the terrorist operation of all
terrorist operations out there causing a ruckus known as The
Tribe. Think of a bunch Bin Laden's merged with a bunch
Donald Trumps and you have an inkling of The Tribe's world
domination plans. Hunting these evil terrorists is
grizzled balding badass agent Paul Ross (Randy Couture) but
for all we know he's hunting smoke since nobody is sure that
this alleged Tribe even exits.
Then one evening in the middle of a black tie gala, Paul gets
some intel that The Tribe has some kind of secret something or
another going down, so he pulls his best friend Ballard
(Vinnie Jones) out of the Gala, while he was in the middle
macking on a cutie, so they can stop whatever kind of
shenanigans The Tribe has going on. Tragically, and we
mean this in all sincerity because Vinnie looked like he was
going to be a lot of fun to hang out with in this movie,
Ballard is killed in the crossfire, the tribe escapes and Paul
Cross is labeled as a lame super agent.
Then Paul gets some intel that The Tribe is planning to take
down mega rich industrialist Bruce Lieb (Craig Fairbrass) as
he makes his way to the United Nations or something on his
private plane. Just so happens that Cross' estranged
lady Olivia (Tiffany DuPont) is going to be on this plane, so
where Paul was just going to deliver some info, now he has to
stay on board, per the invitation of Mr. Lieb, to keep an eye
on his girl.
It's not long before the terrorist, all three
of them, slip on board, led by the completely evil Mr. Pawlak
(Holt Mcallany). We know it's an inside job but who is
it on the inside? Is it Lieb's half sister Michele (Gina
Philips) who hates him? Or maybe it's Lieb's chief of
security Mr. Southwell (Dominic Purcell) because he has thick
porn mustache and nobody with a mustache like that in the new
millennium can seriously be trusted. Or maybe it's that
cute couple… oh… they're only on board the plane so they can
scurry away to a private room and have sex. Gotta
gratuitously squeeze some titties in this thing some kind of
way, know what I'm saying?
Regardless of who is on the inside, Paul Cross has a bunch of
terrorist… okay… three terrorist that have to be killed, a
girl that needs to be saved, and only then will he allow
himself the luxury of figuring out who is on the inside
pulling the strings. I pretty sure it's not the Black
guy playing the CFO because there's a good chance he's going
to die.
There are a few problems with 'Hijacked' as a piece of viable
action themed cinematic entertainment. For starters it
has a story that is about as action-generic as it gets, even
though the end reveal was actually pretty clever. Which
completely made it not fit in this generic theme that
permeated throughout 99.6% of this movie. The settings
were claustrophobic, which is why most Die Hard rip-offs tend
to take place in wide open spaces… and now we know why since
squeezing through isle seats does not make for the best
action. And the terrorist were kind of weak. I
mean there were only three of them so there was only so much
they could do, and when they were dealing with anyone tougher
than young people having sex or a Black guy strapped to a
chair, they were pretty darned useless. That doesn't
mean that our hero should turn his back on them to look at
something else that caught his attention, because that would
be stupid, but so weak were these terrorist they couldn't even
take advantage of that.
Tragically, this isn't even the main problem with
'Hijacked'. The number one issue is that my main man
Randy Couture isn't much of an actor. At least not
one who should be saddled with the weight of carrying an
entire movie. As a supporting heavy, like in the movie
'Setup' or 'Big Stan' or 'The Expendables', he's pretty
good. As the central figure… not so much. We
mentioned this before but Couture and his UFC counterparts
aren't professional wrestlers who are pretty much actors
anyway. UFC guys are real fighters, so you aren't going
to find a lot of the Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, Steve Austin
type natural charisma in these guys. Worst still is that
this movie already has legitimate 'acting' tough guys in its
cast in Fairbrass, Purcell and Vinny Jones. Even Holt
McAllany for that matter. What the filmmakers probably
should've done was make a slight cast shift. Fairbrass
as your terrorist, Purcell as the tough guy star, Vinnie Jones
as the security head, McAllany as the rich guy and Randy as
the guy who gets shot in the head in the beginning. That
movie would've still been generic, but now we have a cast
that's gonna light some things up. Of course that's
neither here or there at this point, but I'm guessing this
would've made this movie slightly more watchable I'm thinking.
'Hijacked' wasn't totally unwatchable, let's get that straight
as it was semi-functional as a time wasting action thriller,
it was just blandly generic and completely miscast is all.
